When you contemplate losing weight, do you immediately think about cutting fat and calories out of your diet? Dieting is usually associated with fat loss, making a lot of people assume that they need to lower their calories and cut the fat out of their diets. They mistake fat for fat cells, assuming that if a label says it contains fat that you will then have to put in extra work to burn it.
It is true that you should be at a 500 caloric deficit to begin losing weight. However, cutting fat completely out of your diet isn’t the answer. Saturated and unsaturated fats are the two that come to mind when people talk about healthy and unhealthy fats – but a lot of people don’t know which is which.
Saturated fats are the ones that are usually associated with clogged arteries and unhealthy eating habits. A little bit of these kinds of fats are okay if you’re healthy, but check your nutrition labels and try to stay away from these instead of overindulging in them.
Saturated fats, if consumed at high amounts over time, can lead to plaque buildup in your arteries and possibly lead to stroke or heart attacks. Unsaturated fats, however, are considered healthy fats, and you shouldn’t completely cut these out of your diet.
In fact, they might just help your diet. The human body can burn unsaturated fats much faster than saturated, so don’t be afraid to follow a high fat, high protein, and low carb diet.
Carbohydrates are burned as energy by the body before fats are, so if your body is already low in carbs, it can immediately start burning fat cells quicker as energy. Keeping higher amounts of healthy unsaturated fat in your diet is useful because fats taste good and fill you up faster, which means you can eat smaller portions.
Avocados, nuts, fish, and other foods are great to add to meals as fats because they are very high in nutrients and very filling. Having healthy fats available in your diet also opens the doors for a variety of meals that you can prepare, which will ultimately be a lot less stressful when dieting.
Besides just focusing on healthy fats for weight management, unsaturated fats have also been known to prevent heart disease and lower your cholesterol, which prevents strokes and heart attacks.
Fats, especially unsaturated fats, should never be overlooked because, like all nutrients, they are essential to your body’s proper functioning. The added benefit is that you can take advantage of these healthy, filling fats to help with your weight management.